The foundation of Lean is thinking people. Human beings have a set of mental skills that enable them to think thoughts, develop plans, trouble-shoot problems, and experiment with ideas to make things work better. These are the “image-of-God” abilities that we were all created with. Getting people to use their brains AND their hands is […]

My last few posts have focused on the role of “thinking” in Lean. I’ve said that the core of it is “THINKING People.” In the Lean Business Culture, we don’t just DO the work, we are always thinking about how we can take action to IMPROVE the work. This raises the questions, “What kind of […]

“For the purposes of this book we’ll define scientific thinking as a process of deliberately engaging reality with the intent of learning. At the core of scientific thinking is continuous curiosity about a world we will never fully understand, but we want to take the next step to understand a little better. It is a […]

“The root idea of all Lean thinking is kaizen: continuous, small step-by-step improvements done by the people who do the work themselves.” Toyota experts call this “Kaizen-mind.” It means that we are ALWAYS thinking about how to make our daily work system better. The goal in Lean is to develop “Kaizen-mind in everyone. The quote […]

If you’ve studied Lean for a while, you may have seen the abbreviation “TPS.” It usually means “Toyota Production System.” Toyota created the business culture we now call “Lean” in the 1950s and 60s. They simply named it the Toyota Production System. The label “Lean” was first used in the 1980s by American business researchers. […]

“A strong assumption within Toyota’s culture is that managers are leaders and leaders are teachers. This is something you cannot easily see simply touring a Toyota plant. The most important job of the manager is to teach young members Toyota’s way of defining, analyzing, communicating, and solving problems.”  Toyota Culture  by Jeffrey Liker & Michael […]

“At Toyota, OJD [On the Job Development] is arguably the most important responsibility of all managers and Toyota has developed a systematic approach. Toyota uses the term ‘development’ because it is broader than what we often think of as training. Training is what you do so the worker can perform the job and meet the […]

“The instructor’s responsibility is to stay with the student until they can comfortably perform the job to takt time following the standardized work. This is known as the ‘stabilization stage.’ The advantage of having team leaders act as the JI [Job Instruction] trainers is that they are already there on the floor. If they have […]

“In Toyota, they never believed that […that classroom training alone is effective at developing people…]. They always believe that what really matters is not the hours of classroom training, but what people have learned which turns into a demonstrated skill. What they need to learn is a new way of thinking that is rigorous, and […]

“The research is definitive that training and development increases loyalty. Besides, what’s the alternative? Do you really want the people you have right now to NOT be the best trained for the job they have to do?”  Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish (Gazelles, 2002) p. 18.